| Chapter Nine |
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The following day was a Sunday and in the morning Sylvia helped her grandfather in the vegetable patch at the back of the cottage, and in the afternoon Bel arrived with more wolf bait strapped to his bike. To the farmed and flattening east the sky was a ghostly and thinly stretched pale grey. To the west where the forest dug deep into the earth and the rooted hills lifted the trees yet higher a darker grey veined the sky. You go in and wash your face. I'll keep him company. Wash my face? It'll only get dirty again. Well, at least show your hair the brush. Boys expect that sort of thing, never mind the rest of the world. He isn't my boyfriend, Grandpa. A pigeon cooed from the chimney brace. He's visiting regular enough to seem like he's fixing to be. Then I'd better leave my hair the way it is to put him off, hadn't I? Bye, Grandpa, I'll be back for tea, before the old man could further protest. She walked down the path to meet him, cursorily and possibly unconsciously smoothing her hair with her soiled fingers. What did you get? A rabbit. I could've got ten. Some were a bit mashed up but this one's all in one piece.I don't think these wolves'll go hungry in a hurry. Wolves, is it? asked the old man, walking towards them. Hello, sir, said Bel, standing tall and offering a hand in greeting. Pleased to meet you, son. He passed the gardening fork to his left hand, spat on the palm of his other hand, wiped it on his trousers, and shook the boy's hand gently. Don't say anything embarrassing, hissed Sylvia. So it's wolves you're after, is it? Bel looked at Sylvia as if to see how he should reply, how much information the old man should be party to. It's a project for school, cut in Sylvia. We have to find out about an animal, and we're doing wolves. Ah yes. The famous school projects. Like when Mrs Trentham rang me herself to say she'd had a complaint about a child digging up a poor old hamster from its eternal rest for a school project? And it turned out the instruction was yours, not hers. The old man's eyes were twinkling despite his admonishing air and Bel laughed. That sounds like Syl, he said. If she taught us anything worth knowing I wouldn't need to educate the others in my own free time. I'd rather be living my own life you know. Careful now or God himself might snatch you up and turn you into a saint. He'd never catch me. Come on, Bel. Goodbye, sir. Go on. Just bring her back before dark and in one piece. The old man leant forward onto his gardening fork and watched them take the spears and the bag and go. * * * In the gloom beneath the old warty spruce beside the old rotting woodcutter stood nine wild and rusting boar, their bodies made of twisted wire with hundreds of once coniferous needled sticks threaded through for bristles and hair. Throughout the forest, hidden here and there, stood various sculptures such as these. Ancient edicts held mankind back from shrinking or farming the forest, but that meddling monkey could not leave them quite alone, felt them somehow incomplete without a carved bear here or towering wooden mushrooms there or covert sound sculptures that clattered in the wind, spooking the birds. An implicit admission perhaps that the forest is not wholly itself without the bears and boars that once snuffled through their savage Eden before their ejection by the fearful suzerains who spoke an inorganic language of cold metal and gunpowder. That the wolves themselves had clung on here was no chance miracle. A soothsayer in the reign of a long dead king had stated that should wolves no longer run free in England then the crown would crumble to dust and the country fall to ruin. Since this time there had been in place an office to assure at least one pack had the run of the country. With the powers invested in it, animals had been snatched from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe when the numbers dwindled too dangerously or the gene pool - once such things became understood - became too stagnant and spoiled or infected with the genes of wild dogs who would sometimes forsake the hearth to return to their feral roots to run with the pack once again. Amongst the still sounder of bristled boar stood Caitlin, spear held before her, dancing and jabbing at the dumb forms, as if training for a primitive form of battle or ballet. Patti called out her name and she turned and jumped the ditch and hailed with an upheld spear Sylvia and Bel as they approached. Together they walked the route of the day before. Before they reached the pool Sylvia stopped them with a gesture and whispered. We've got to hide our scent or we'll scare them away. She bent and scooped some mud from the fetid ditch and greased it over her face and arms. Thank God I'm not wearing any scent, said Patti. That stinks. I'm not wearing any sprayed on scent either, dimbo, said Sylvia. It's our animal scent we have to hide. What makes us smell like people, added Bel. The wolves won't come near if they can smell we've been there. Here, stick bits of tree in your clothes as well. He snapped the tips from a juvenile pine and handed them round. There is no way I'm rubbing that on my face. There are worms that live in ditches that make you go blind. Fine. Don't worry Patti, we won't make you do anything you don't want to. You wait here and we'll pick you up on our way back. Sylvia didn't need to look at Patti to see the effect her words would have. Patti bent down and poked a finger into the ditch and spread the muck thinly over her cheeks. Don't forget your hands, whispered Caitlin. They sweat the most. My hands most certainly do not sweat. And it's so cold today even a snowman wouldn't sweat. But she rubbed the mud on them anyway. And thus they continued towards their destination, shrunken camouflaged soldiers or corporeated forest spirits or people of Pan. A little owl with tufted ears perched unseen in the branches of a mature silver birch and watched them as they passed. They walked in the greatest silence the forest floor would allow as they approached the pool. Bel alone circumnavigated the pool to where he had laid the meat and squatted. After inspecting the ground all around he crept silently back. It's gone! he whispered. I know it might not have been a wolf, but it's definitely gone. Not a trace, but the ground around it's a bit kicked up. I couldn't see any footprints or anything though. I vote we lay the rabbit. He waited for the synchronised nods then opened the bag and pulled out the rabbit by its ears. Its eyes were black and shineless. He placed it on the floor and held its fore legs apart. Caitlin knelt and held the hind legs. Sylvia reached into her back pocket and picked out her knife and went down on one knee and eased the blade into the animal's bared chest just below the ribs. She tugged the knife and rent a jagged tear through the fur. Even Patti leant in closer. Sylvia then made four parallel cuts to the rabbit's sides, dug her fingers deep into the flesh and ripped the fur back towards her. Can you do that side? she whispered. The animal's silvery guts were exposed and within them oozed a swarm of shining maggots. Patti slapped her hand to her mouth to hold in whatever noise might otherwise erupt, then spat the mud from her lips and wiped them on her sleeve. Then the smell must have reached her, for she dropped her spear and held both hands cupped around her nose and mouth. Bel took the rabbit over to the other side of the lake, taking care not to spill the liquid guts, and laid it to rest on the ground. Caitlin picked up the dropped spear and the bag and they all retreated away from the spring pool and started out homeward. Patti finally took back her spear and breathed freely again. I don't know what you think will eat that. Whatever does'll think of the maggots as pudding. Nice and sweet and juicy. Like you've ever eaten any. I would if I was a wild animal. I'd love them. I'd eat them every day for breakfast and let them wriggle in my mouth before I swallowed them. No you wouldn't, Syl. You're just saying that. I've had them in my mouth when I've been fishing, said Bel. It gets them warm and wriggly before you put them on the hook. I've never actually swallowed any. But when you throw them to the birds they peck at them like it's Christmas. That's birds, said Patti. Not wolves. I know foxes like them, said Caitlin. When the fox got my uncle's chickens it buried them all over the place and they must have been quite maggoty by the time it dug them back up. I'll bet wolves are pretty much the same. How do you know it didn't just feel bad about killing them and decided to bury them? It didn't exactly say any prayers over them, Patti. And it dug them up and ate them later, and as far as I know vicars don't do that with the people they bury. Burying them's just their way of keeping them in the freezer, my uncle said. They had reached the towering concrete bear and Caitlin kicked the chains that hung from its neck and around its base. Bel kicked the rotting stump of the bench beside it, from where passers by could sit and enjoy the menacing concrete jaws. They sat down. We could do with some snow, said Bel. Then tracking them back to the den would be easy. Or just mud, said Patti. There are millions of prints in the mud. Patti, you're a star, said Sylvia. That's exactly what we'll do. If they're round here, we'll find them. Come on, let's look around now. We've got ages yet till it's dark. * * * The dark had nevertheless turned almost all to shadow when the two small figures crept along the path towards the third cottage. As if clockwork a wizened face appeared in the window of the first cottage. The window swung open and clattered in the still evening. The silhouette of the old woman's face sprung out on the leathery stalk of its neck. Running with boys in the dark now I see. What did I tell you? You don't know what you're talking about, spat Sylvia. Like mother like daughter. Then God help your daughter, you old hag. Can't talk, but like a guttersnipe. He ain't fit to rear pigs. You'll get took away yet, girl. You'll be the one that gets taken away, you and your vile nose. Far away and we'll all be glad. In the safety of her own pathway now Sylvia dug her nails into her hands and breathed heavily, waiting for the slam of the window closing. It came. Are you all right? asked Bel. Sylvia? I'll kill her one day. And leave her body for the wolves. She'd probably taste like poison though. You shouldn't let her upset you. If it was just her words I wouldn't mind, but she sends people round to see if I need taking into care. For all I know one day they'll believe her and not me. They won't believe her, Syl. You'll be all right. He placed his hand on her shoulder and she whispered thanks. The jackdaws twittered as if in complaint at the noise disturbing their roost and Bel picked up his bike, looked up at the evening star and ran his bike and jumped on.
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